More than 20 people got a taste of the wonders that Carson was writing about during a presentation on the Ospreys of Chautauqua County recently.

Dr. Jeanne Wiebenga showed slides at the Findley Lake Community Center at an event sponsored by Community Connections at Findley Lake. She gave a presentation titled “Ospreys of Loomis Goose Creek Preserve near Chautauqua Lake.”

Wiebenga said the osprey population around the world had been severely reduced by the use of DDT, until efforts by Carson and others, such as Roger Tory Peterson of Jamestown, caused the chemical to be banned in 1972.

Since then the osprey has had a remarkable comeback. It is estimated that there are now half a million in the world and they live on every continent except Antarctica, Wiebenga said

Dr. Jeanne Wiebenga gave a presentation on “The Ospreys of Loomis Goose Creek Preserve” to about 20 people gathered at the Findley Lake Community Center.

The osprey first made a comeback along the east coast but it was only recently that they returned to Chautauqua County, Wiebenga said, “There were no osprey in Chautauqua County until 2010,” Wiebenga said. “There were two in 2015. Now we see at least 18 ospreys.”

Wiebenga, who lives in Chautauqua County, but has traveled around the world for her work, describes herself as a passionate photographer. In 2020, during the COVID pandemic, she was driving along Route 394 and there were almost no cars on the road, she said. She noticed an osprey nest that had been built by a wildlife conservancy in 2015. She also noticed that it had some twigs on top of it.

Wiebenga said she started stopping by the nest on a regular basis, and, in April, a female osprey arrived and began building her nest. A week later, a male osprey arrived and joined her. The female is identified by a crown around her neck, she said.

Wiebenga took pictures on a regular basis but had no way of knowing if there was an egg or a hatchling in the nest. However, since the female was brooding for two months, she said she was hopeful.

Suddenly, in early August, she saw a fully grown youngster. “It was sitting there like an apparition,” Wiebenga said. “It showed up fully grown, but it hadn’t fledged (flown) yet.”

Wiebenga said she watched through the week, as the parents urged the youngster to fly. “I happened to be there when she jumped. She made a little victory lap and came back to the nest,” she said. “The mother immediately spread its wings over the baby, as if congratulating it and the father gave it a fish.”

Once the young bird has fledged, the mother only stayed about a week and then left for the east coast estuaries, Wiebenga said. The father stayed for three or four weeks and then left for the Amazon.

The young bird remained in the area of the nest until November, when it took off to fly to the Amazon. “How it knows where to go, we don’t know. It’s never been there and it has no GPS,” Wiebenga said. “If it survives the trip, the youngster stays south for two years, and then comes back to start its own family, usually within a 40-mile radius of where it grew up.”

Wiebenga said the wildlife conservancy was able to put a camera up in the nest the next year. On April 8, two birds showed up, and on April 26, an egg was seen in the nest. “For the first time ever, we could see an egg,” she said. “Eight weeks later, we had a hatchling.”

Again in 2022, two birds showed up in April, Wiebenga said. After a while, an egg was seen and it was again possible to follow the hatching and growth of the young bird. Because the camera was linked to her phone Wiebenga said she was able to chronicle the bird’s growth both years.

Two birds arrived again in the spring, Wiebenga said. This time, however, there was one, then two, then three eggs in the nest. “I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she said. She noted that osprey typically lay one to three eggs, and four at the most.

“Since osprey only eat fish, it was an enormous amount of work for the parents to feed the hatchlings as they grew over three months. Osprey, being raptors, are voracious eaters, she said.

Both the mother and father left in August and all of the birds were gone by early September, Wiebenga said. “They left early this year, but we do not know why,” she said.

Osprey have a 25-year life span, Wiebenga said. “The osprey is the only bird besides the peregrine falcon that lives around the world,” she said.

Wiebenga notes that if it weren’t for Rachel Carson, the osprey could have become extinct, along with several other species of birds. As Carson pointed out in her book Silent Spring in 1962, birds like the Osprey were suffering because of pesticides.

One of the chemicals Carson was especially concerned about was DDT. According to ornithologists, DDT made it more difficult for birds to absorb calcium and the lack of calcium made their egg shells thinner. Therefore, many eggs broke before they could hatch.

Since birds like eagles and ospreys typically only lay one to three eggs at a time, losing one or two eggs each year due to shell thinning had a dramatic impact on their populations. Wiebenga said efforts of Carson and Roger Peterson helped save the osprey.